Progress before the rain

Well, I got a bit done on the beds in the main garden area.

I ended up taking some progress video, and I’ll put something together when they’re done. For today, I started by marking out the north ends of the remaining 3 beds that need to be shifted, at the 18′ line. Then I removed the logs around the beds. Some of them were quite difficult to get loose from the ground. The worst were actually a couple of pretty small logs, but they were completely enrobed in Creeping Charlie and their roots.

One of the beds still had boards over it that I used to step on when tending it, and a stack of bricks that held netting down, from last year. All of those, plus things like sticks that were used to support plants, got moved aside.

One thing I was happy to see while doing all that were lots and lots of frogs!

Hopefully, they are doing a good job of gobbling up slugs and other critters that might cause us trouble once things are planted.

The whole area is so overgrown, I ended up getting the weed trimmer out, along with a couple hundred feet of extension cord. 🫤 It took a while, but I trimmed things down to almost bare earth – and found more logs that had been hidden in the grass while I was at it! The whole thing looked a lot less overwhelming after that was done.

I then took a break and headed into town. We needed to get refills on a couple of our water jugs. I called the grocery store ahead and asked if they had cardboard that I could take. I got transferred to someone who works in the back, and it seems they didn’t have much, but then he accidentally hung up on me. 😄

When I got there and got the refills I needed, plus a couple of other things, since I was there anyhow, I found someone working on the floor about carboard. She went to the back and came out with some boxes for me. My timing wasn’t very good; most of what they had had already gone through the compactor. Still, a few boxes, plus what we already have, is a good start.

Once at home and unloading the truck by the house, though, I could hear thunder. It had actually started to rain a tiny bit while I was working in the garden, but it didn’t stick around. The forecast says we’re supposed to start getting rain around 4pm, but a tiny little storm hit at around 2. It’s passed us by, but a much larger system is heading towards us right now. It’s past 2:30 as I write this, and the forecast now says that heavy rain is expected in about 25 minutes.

Well, I’m glad I at least got that weed trimming done. That will help. The boxes I brought home are out in the yard, getting rained on, which is fine. It doesn’t look like we’ll get any more down on the garden beds today, though.

Today, being June 2, is our last average frost date. Starting tomorrow, it should be safe to start transplanting things and direct sowing.

Oh, gosh. I just remembered that our transplants are outside right now. I hope they did okay in the rain! I’d better bring them into the sun room before the big system hits us. Mostly, I’m concerned the pots will get knocked over and such. They need to get used to rain as much as they do the sun and wind!

I’d better go do that right now, before I forget!

The Re-Farmer

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